


Down Under

by shomarus



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shomarus/pseuds/shomarus
Summary: Late night heat-induced banter.





	Down Under

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been so long since I’ve written for these girls lmao. I’ve been pouring a lot of focus into a novel of my own as of late, actually! :’) As well as other fandom stuff.
> 
> In any case, thank you so much for reading!

It’s hot in their little apartment, cooled only by the single electric fan Carol had bought some time ago. When exactly, Therese couldn’t quite say, and muggy as it was as she laid on top of the bed covers, she couldn’t care to recall. All she could think, whether she claimed to bother or not, was that she was thankful for it’s clanky noise, if for no reason other than it was surely the only thing keeping her from expiring an early death due to heatstroke.

“If I melt into a little puddle right here,” Therese grumbles, though she could pick out the sweet note of affection underneath the dissonant chord of annoyance, “you would do well to promise me you’ll melt with me. So that I may know I suffer the same as you do.”

She’s unsure if Carol’s even awake, because Carol has proven herself to be better in terms of handling heat and would find no problem sleeping in such arid conditions. After a moment, however, Carol’s sleep-ridden voice stirs.

“Why,” Carol begins, and Therese can hear the grin in her voice, “I may wish to drink you up, were you to melt right in front of my eyes.”

At that, Therese groans, though she’s unsure if it’s because the statement was odd or because it was odd in a way that was so uniquely Carol that she could not bear to bat away the grin that sneaks upon her lips. “Don’t say that. That’s _weird_.”

“Ah, but I am an aficionado for the bizarre.” That’s Carol’s hand corkscrewing into the air, carelessly and with the kind of sleeplessness that early hours bring. Therese’s heart swells.

“So _that’s_ why we’re together.”

“I thought it might be because I love you,” Carol replies. Even though it’s dark, Therese knows her darling well enough to imagine Carol’s face. Catlike grin, and Therese, mouseish in stance and quite ready to be made into a quick meal. Therese’s hand fishes around for a pillow that’d been kicked off the bed by her restless fidgeting mere minutes ago.

When she finds it, she throws it at Carol, who laughs underneath the fabric.

“If it’s an admission of love that you desire from me, you’ll get it once this wretched heat goes away,” Therese decides promptly.

Carol, however, will have none of it. “Boo you. As though you’re the only one with a temperature-induced sleeping problem.” Her hands wander, reaching for Therese’s sides. They connect, and she flinches, suddenly ticklish. “Come now, if we’re both restless…”

“You’re ridiculous. If it’s heat that makes you horny, I’d know better than to embrace you each night before I sleep.”

But Therese does turn to face Carol.

“Oh, mon cœur.”

“You’ll live.”

“Hardly. It’s ridiculousness that finds me so attracted to you.” Carol’s hands reach for Therese’s cheek, and she lets it happen. She’s always loved the roughness of Carol’s skin versus the delicateness of her touch. “And I quite love you.”

Therese’s eyes roll, but the familiar quickened beat of her heart comes to her. She enjoys the feeling still, years after she’d come to move in with Carol. Six years since they’d first exchanged words of love in a musty hotel room out in Iowa, she finds herself raptured by the feeling, surrounded by it. “And I love you.”

Carol’s lips draw into a faux-pout. “After all that talk, I find it very hard to believe you mean it.”

“Would you rather I gasp it while I’m sweating so hard that you could drink off of me?”

Carol shifts forward, wriggling closer until there’s only a breath’s length between them. Therese shivers in spite of the heat and wonders if Carol had felt that. The way her grin grows, she’s certain that she has. “Only you could make such a proposition sound so enticing.”

“Then, perhaps, instead of a puddle, where at least liquid is involved in some form, I shall dry out like a fish out of water. One touch from your devious fingers and my ashes will be scattered to the winds.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“You moreso than I.”

Then, silence. Therese has grown comfortable in the sort of back-and-forth banter that had sprouted from infatuation. Jests to-and-fro that Carol heartily delivered back with a twinkle in her eye and a kiss for Therese’s own lips. This hadn’t quite been the life that she’d envisioned, holed back up in that Catholic school. Girls whispering about boys they liked, the kinds of lives they would have liked to live, and Therese finding herself unable to see herself in any of those roles. Having seen depictions of men beating their wives, of women standing there and acting so beneath men, she felt quite glad that Carol is nothing like that. Conventional or not, their love is touching and preferable to that of any man.

Even if Carol has proven herself to have the libido that could surpass one, time and time again.

“…You can’t be serious about… wanting to fuck right now. It’s just about one in the morning, and I have to get up at six, lest Mr. Waters has my head.”

“Well, fuck Mr. Waters is what I say.”

Therese’s lips stretch into a grin of her own. “Eager to fuck you are, aren’t you. Well, if nothing else, I hope I take precedence over him.”

Carol laughs, “And you’re to call me the devious one! Oh, you rascal.” And then her hands are trailing down Therese’s sides, caressing the small dip of her waist before they go down to caress the dip between her legs instead. “You weren’t kidding about sweating yourself into a puddle, now were you?” Carol says, though there’s an underlying meaning that Therese catches with an awkward chuckle.

“Now, Carol, who’s to say that’s sweat after all?”

Carol hums a short tune, and once again, Therese can’t help but to be thankful for the small electric fan that continued to run even after Therese was left a disheveled mess.


End file.
